Chinese Toss Out Cultural Minister

September 5, 1989|The Baltimore Sun

BEIJING -- China announced on Monday that it was sacking its culture minister, the most prominent official to be purged in the past two months of the government`s crackdown on liberals and intellectuals.

Wang Meng, a 54-year-old writer who became culture minister in 1986, was removed from his post on Monday by a vote of China`s legislature, a government announcement said.

Wang, who presided over a relatively liberal period in the arts during his three years in office, was the latest official victim of a government purge begun in late June.

The official news agency Xinhua said that hard-line Premier Li Peng personally submitted the proposal to oust Wang at a meeting of the executive session of the National People`s Congress, China`s rubber-stamp legislature.

Wang, who was sent to a labor camp for alienating Communist authorities in the 1950s, was described by Xinhua as having requested the dismissal.

``Wang had said time and again that he wished to withdraw from the post to concentrate on writing and literary criticism,`` the Xinhua report said.

But Western diplomats and observers said Wang`s dismissal is part of the continuing crackdown on officials it considers too lenient or sympathetic to students and dissidents.

Monday`s firing of Wang was announced exactly three months after Chinese troops and tanks crushed a student pro-democracy movement based in Tiananmen Square. At least 1,000 people were killed in the assault, according to diplomats, witnesses and human-rights organizations.

Since then, hard-liners have purged former Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and scores of lesser officials.

Wang is likely to be replaced as culture minister by He Jingzhi, a poet and ideological conservative who once headed the propaganda department for the party.

Last month, He took over the duties of party secretary for the Ministry of Culture. His appointment to succeed Wang as minister is expected to be announced in the near future.

Since June, authorities have arrested thousands of students and intellectuals, banned or burned thousands of books and videos and interrogated hundreds of journalists and artists about their activities during the spring demonstrations.

Wang is best known as a writer of short stories, such as The Butterfly. He was blacklisted from 1957 to 1979 because of his earlier writings, which got him in trouble during Mao Tse-tung`s ``anti-rightist`` campaigns.

As culture minister, Wang presided over a brief blooming of artistic freedom in China. Rock music and avant-garde art gained some degree of official approval, as did a new wave of film makers and playwrights.

But now China`s hard-line leaders have revived the Maoist call for art to serve the political needs of the party.